Welcome to the Official Schedule for RightsCon 2019, the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age.
Together at RightsCon Tunis, our first summit hosted in the Middle East and North Africa, more than 2500 expert practitioners will come together across over 400 sessions to shape, contribute to, and drive forward the global agenda for the future of our human rights.
Important note: Whether you’re a session organizer, speaker, or participant, you’ll need to login to Sched or create an account in order to get the most out of the program (including creating a profile and building your own customized RightsCon schedule).
This session promotes reflection by activists on how their efforts risk being co-opted by nation states pursuing regime change. Panelists will review ways that governments have used civil society activism to advance geopolitical goals (in state-to-state rivalry.) Then participants will discuss whether that background relates to today's experiences. The first part, on deep background, is multidimensional. It will be historical (e.g. examples of "political warfare" dating back to the Trojan War,) conceptual (e.g. notions of "unconventional warfare," "protest potential," "strategic narratives," etc.), and political (episodes of Internet-empowered activism that led to regime change but not to obvious increases in democracy.) In the second part, attendees will be invited to relate these histories and concepts to their own experiences or to those of their peers. Activists may explore whether today's situations bear any resemblance to past experiences and, if so, what that means for practice. The goal of the session is to make human rights activism more effective in achieving its goals of advancing human rights, social justice, and good governance.
